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‘Batman V Superman’ Was Originally Four Hours Long | Film News

WARNING! This article may contain spoilers! Following a badgering of reviews criticising its underwhelming characters, overbearing storylines and lengthy running time, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice editor David Brenner has revealed the original cut of the movie containing “absolutely everything” was “nearly a four hour cut”.

Since its release, the DC epic which depicts the Caped Crusador (Ben Affleck) against the Man of Steel (Henry Cavill) has been slammed by critics; only managing to scrape scores of 28% on Rotten Tomatoes and 44% on Metacritic. The movie has also failed to uphold the success of its opening weekend, having already fallen from the top spot after just two weeks, following the release of new comedy The Boss.

Speaking to Pro Video Coalition, Brenner explained cutting the running time down to 2 hours and 33 minutes was difficult due to huge focus on both the superheroes and their alter-egos: “Generally, BvS was a unique challenge in that we had not one but two protagonists, each with an alter-ego. So there was Clark Kent, Superman, Bruce Wayne and Batman”.

He continued, revealing the development in supporting characters contributed to the ridiculous running time: “And then surrounding them are Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Wallace Keefe, Perry White, Martha Kent, Holly Senator Finch, and still more characters orbiting them”. Brenner also admitted that character plot lines had to be removed to cut chunks out of the story: “It was a lot to juggle, so the plot lines of a couple characters had to go”.